The Current | Vol. 31 Issue 30

April 14, 2021 | nsucurrent.nova.edu 2 News 3301 College Avenue Don Taft University Center, PVA Room 328 Fort Lauderdale, FL 33314-7796 nsucurrent.nova.edu Newsroom Phone: 954-262-8455 nsunews@nova.edu The Current serves Nova Southeastern University from its lo- cation in Room 328 of the Don Taft University Center. The Current is NSU’s established vehicle for student report- ing, opinion and the arts. All community members are invited to contribute. Editorials, commentaries and advertisements in this publication reflect the opinions of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University or its officials, The Current staff or other advertisers. The Current will not publish unsigned letters except under special circum- stances at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief. The Current reserves the right to edit. Contributing writers must not be directly involved with their coverage. Coverage by contributing writers must be meaningful and of interest to the NSU community. The Current reserves the right to edit, publish or deny submitted works as it sees fit. The Current shall remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility or otherwise create a bias, real or perceived. Megan Fitzgerald Rey Perez Evan Kelley Nyla Wyte Neha Simon Briana Ramnauth Ana Maria Soto Blake Malick Tomas Salom Santiago D. Finochietto Aliyah Gomez Veronica Richard J. L. Glasthal Aaron Kurzweil Faculty Advisor mf821@nova.edu Jarrod Bailey Staff Advisor jbailey1@nova.edu Sofia Gallus Siena Berardi Madelyn Rinka Alexander Martinie Rick Esner Christina McLaughlin Flor Ana Mireles Sports Editor Features Editor Arts & Entertainment Editor Co-Editor-in-Chief Co-Editor-in-Chief Opinions Editor News Editor Copy Editor Contributing Writer Contributing Writer Contributing Writer Contributing Writer Contributing Writer Contributing Writer Contributing Writer Contributing Writer Contributing Writer Contributing Writer Contributing Writer Contributing Writer Chief of Visual Design Emma Heineman Business & Advertising Phone: 954-262-8461 thecurrentad@nova.edu Course registration changes at NSU On April 2, Enrollment and Student Services at NSU announced a new class registration process for the Fall 2021 semester and the foreseeable future. The new registration process was passed by the Undergraduate Student Government Association and can be defined as tiered registration. Course registration is now broken up by weeks. For the first week, the schedule allows seniors, having 90 credits or more, to register for courses first, followed by juniors with 60-89 credits before opening up registration to all seniors and juniors. This part of registration started last Monday and wrapped up this past weekend. In week two, which started Monday, April 12, sophomores with 20-59 credits can register for courses, followed by freshmen with less than 29 credits. Afterward, registration is open to all students fromApril 19 at 8 a.m. to Aug. 22 at 10 p.m. Registration is only available to students during their designated days and times. Elaine Poff, the director of NSU’s registrar’s office, said, “Seniors, or the students with higher credits, need the priority to classes because they need to graduate. That was the main thing, getting the students who need to graduate the better selection of classes.” This new process also removes priority registration for students with the designations of honors or athlete. Instead, honors students and athletes will follow this new tiered process based on class level. However, a special dispensation will be provided to all Farquhar Honors College students to achieve their course of study, meaning if an honors student is closed out of a class they have to have for graduation, they can contact their academic adviser and work with them to get them into a class that fulfills their requirement. A major difference between this new process and the previous one is that all course registrations begin at 8 a.m. instead of midnight the night before. Poff Rick Esner News Editor Returning to campus: An update on housing Emma Heineman Features Editor Last week, the housing selection process began for the 2021-2022 academic year. Students had the ability to self-select roommates and room assignments through NSU’s housing portal in preparation for a return to campus in the fall. Regarding NSU’s April 1 announcement to require all students to receive COVID-19 vaccinations and move instruction back on campus, the latter decision means that more students are expected to move into residential housing come the fall. “I think [the decision to hold classes on campus] definitely impacts us positively in order for us to return to some form of normalcy,” said Justin Smith, the director of residential life and housing at NSU. The vaccine requirement is anticipated to be in place in order to live on campus in the fall and will help to facilitate a return to normal. Smith looks forward to seeing a much more vibrant and active campus community this upcoming year. Smith explained that, although the COVID-19 vaccine requirement is new, vaccine requirements, in general, are nothing new to students who have lived on campus before. “What I will say is that we already require vaccination on campus, so this isn’t an anomaly if you have lived on campus before. You know you have to have the meningitis shot, measles, mumps and rubella. So, vaccinations, in general, are not uncommon to the university or uncommon, specifically, to students living on campus,” he said. Smith encourages students to take advantage of the opportunity to get vaccinated through NSU in order to protect themselves and their community. The Office of Residential Life and Housing is actively planning to ensure that, if students are expected to be vaccinated, this will be an added layer to the housing process. Smith also addressed some of the concerns that students voiced with this year’s housing selection process. He explained that the limited housing options and availability for upperclassmen for the upcoming academic year is an unfortunate circumstance of NSU’s growth. He said, “We’ve recruited so many new students to the university, and as that recruitment continues to occur, we also retain even more students every year, and so, with that retention, we’re unfortunately not in a position to support all students who want to live on campus.” Despite not being able to offer on- campus housing options to all students at NSU, the Office of Residential Life and Housing remains committed to ensuring that they support students in finding other housing options. Their website contains a variety of resources that can help students find and secure off- campus housing. The website provides information about NSU’s off-campus housing partners, some of which provide special rates for NSU students. For more information about off-campus housing, visit www.nova.edu/off-campus- housing/index.html. Smith encourages students to reach out and provide feedback about the housing process in order to improve it in the future. “I love getting [student] feedback. I mean, our housing selection process right now was generated because of the voice of students, and particularly from our student government association... We want to continue to support you all,” said Smith. To find more information about NSU’s on-campus and off-campus housing options, visit the residential life and housing page at www.nova.edu/ housing/index.html. explained the reasoning behind this change. “We wanted to start it at a time when there would be people in the office, so if there is a problem we could address it right then instead of waiting six to eight hours to address it. It was really to serve students better. That’s why we chose a time that we would be able to fix an issue if it happened,” she said. While seniors and juniors faced some difficulties because of technical issues last week, Poff says that, with time, the registration process will get better. “It will improve. This is the first semester, so [there have] been some bumps and we’re working through them. Any time a new process is put in place, you have some difficulties, but we are working with undergraduate student affairs, and as the problems come up, we resolve them. It’ll work a lot better for the winter semester, so we can’t wait for that to happen,” Poff said. With permission to print from E. Cowan